Constructor: Aimee Lucido
Relative difficulty: Medium (started out eeeeasy, but then wow I got repeatedly roughed up the Whole SW area) (mid-6-minute mark, somewhere in there)
![]()
THEME: none
Word of the Day: Ernest Rutherford (49A: Rutherford and Shackleton, for two) —
![]()
Despite having no clue about 1A: YouTube star Chamberlain, whom The Atlantic called "the most talked-about teen influencer in the world" (EMMA), I got off to a fast start on this one and was quite enjoying my trip around the grid, across the top and over into the NE and down into the east and center and then ... sputter sputter sputter. If you draw a diagonal on the grid from NW to SE, I have almost no green ink above that line and a sea of green ink below it. Just couldn't make sense of a bunch of clues and, crucially, didn't know who either of the ERNESTS was. That was especially unpleasant, as plural names are never that fun, and plural long names, less fun, and then when you don't know the name(s) ... all fun gone. Important dead white guys, no idea. Oh well. That answer was a connective answer, which could've led me into the SE, but didn't. It crossed another answer I couldn't get, this time because the clue didn't mean anything to me. I don't think I know what [Diagnostic computer setting] means. I've heard of SAFE MODE, but don't know what it has to do with diagnostics. So that's two longer connective answers that were just blocked for me. Clue on YEOMAN didn't help me (wanted CORGI but it wouldn't fit) (52A: Buckingham Palace attendant) (a little weird to have "attendant" in a clue when INATTENTIVE is in the grid, but OK). UNC before UVA (58D: A.C.C. basketball powerhouse). OURS before ONE'S (64A: Gender-neutral possessive). Absolutely no idea about OR IN (always sucks to have the bad fill be the struggle point) (53D: "... now ___ the future") (Me: "ON TO"!?!?). No idea about yet another computer-related clue at 57D: !, in some programming languages (NOT). DROVE NUTS is right!
Relative difficulty: Medium (started out eeeeasy, but then wow I got repeatedly roughed up the Whole SW area) (mid-6-minute mark, somewhere in there)
Word of the Day: Ernest Rutherford (49A: Rutherford and Shackleton, for two) —
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, OM, FRS, HonFRSE (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand–born British physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. Encyclopædia Britannica considers him to be the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday (1791–1867).
In early work, Rutherford discovered the concept of radioactive half-life, the radioactive element radon, and differentiated and named alpha and beta radiation. This work was performed at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the basis for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry he was awarded in 1908 "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances", for which he was the first Canadian and Oceanian Nobel laureate. (wikipedia)
• • •
I think FOR ALL I CARE is PRIMO fill, for sure. Same with BITTER END, though it's a bit, uh, on the nose for our current political moment. I was less thrilled about the clue on NAVELGAZERS (25D: More familiar term for omphaloskeptics). Yesterday it was a Latin clue, today Greek, and with this one crossing the GermanALTE (36A: German opposite of "junge") ... I just didn't find it pleasant. Also, I just don't believe anyone calls NAVELGAZERS"omphaloskeptics." That clue is just a "Hey, do you even know your Greek root words, you PHILISTINES!?"-type clue, and meh to that, say I. I will say that I really should know ALTE by now—crosswordese I've seen a bunch, but somehow couldn't get to. I think it's because ALTE looks like it should mean "high" (as in "elevated," not "stoned"), so it's always slightly surprising to remember it means "old." Clue on AURAL also not great to my ... ear (!). It's a hearing exam. There are oral exams, and there are hearing exams. Calling it AURAL ... people tend not to do this because it sounds so much like "oral." And since I originally wanted BONKERS for 47A: Absolutely crazy (BANANAS), I had O-RAL and for a half-second worried that there was some kind of rebus or other trick going on. Why was there an additional blank square in "ORAL"!? But it was AURAL. Sigh. Lastly, clue-wise, I superduper object to the clue on SPLAT (22D: [Kerplop!]). [Kerplop!] is the sound of an object being dropped into water; SPLAT is the sound of a fly being flattened by a swatter. They are fundamentally different sounds. So I like the grid on this one OK, but many of the clues just missed me, either because they were bad, or because I was dumb. A little of both.